


means of escape

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hydra Jemma Simmons, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 11:56:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11184615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: There were a lot of things Grant expected when Bakshi name-dropped Simmons, this isn't one of them.





	means of escape

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "you have the cutest nose."
> 
> This gets kinda dark. There's nothing graphic, but there's definitely mention of torture happening previously.

There were a lot of things Grant expected when Bakshi name-dropped Simmons—brainwashing, incentives program, complete mental breakdown thanks to nearly drowning at the bottom of the ocean with her best friend—but he definitely never expected her surprise at seeing him to fade into a seductive smile as Bakshi finishes explaining that Grant’s been one of theirs for years.

“Oh,” she says, eyes dragging over him, “that does make sense.”

“I imagine the two of you will want to catch up,” Bakshi says. “I’m afraid assigning Mr. Ward permanent quarters will take some time.”

Simmons’ smile grows humorous. “He can use mine. I’m sure I can spare my shower for an old friend.”

“Not like we’ve never shared,” Grant says, just to see how she reacts. He isn’t disappointed. For the most part, she shows no reaction at all, but he can see the slight widening of her eyes. He’s surprised her. And not just because of the dirty implication behind the words.

After that Bakshi makes himself scarce and the two of them do the same. The elevator ride is short enough, but Grant makes the most of it, pushing right past the boundaries he kept up between himself and Simmons on the Bus. Back then, he’d touch her arm or her back, rest a hand on hers or move her hair out of her face when her gloves were in the way just to see her face flush and her crush on him deepen. But now he outright invades her space, lets his hands linger in places he’d never have dared touch her before.

She doesn’t balk. In fact, she eggs him on, leaning into his touches, undoing the buttons on the ratty jacket he picked up three states ago. She even whines when the doors open, like she would’ve been happy to jump him right here.

Her quarters are better than the standard operative rooms—probably the scientists aren’t used to roughing it and having to cook in the same room they sleep in—but still not very big. It’s barely three steps in to the bedroom.

“Do you need help finding the bathroom?” she asks while they’re both in full view of it.

He smiles at the brazen offer and again closes the distance between them, backing her up into a wall. Her hair’s shorter. He runs his fingers through it, slides his palm along her jaw, down her neck. He stops when the heel of his hand is over the soft flesh of her throat and presses.

Her eyes go big and round, that wide mouth drops open, her nails dig at his arm, the soft spaces between the bones in his hand. He keeps the pressure up, lets her realize just how easy it would be for him to end this here and now.

“Where is Simmons?” he asks, each word crisp and clear so she can hear it through the pounding in her head.

“Ward-” she chokes. He can feel her throat fluttering, fighting to keep open. He gives her just enough space to breathe, enough to stay alive, no more.

“Don’t fuck with me. I know Simmons. You may look like her and you might even have her mannerisms down, but you _are not her_.” He surprises himself with how angry he is. He cares about the team, sure, but he’s so pissed off he’s actually shaking. It’s gotta be the fear. Hearing Bakshi say her name, he was sure she’d been hurt somehow, spent the whole flight worrying what’d been done to her. And now this bitch has stolen his relief at knowing exactly what out from under him. “So tell me where she is and maybe I’ll let you live.”

“Sh- she-”

“She’s where?” Just because she’s suffocating is no reason to keep him waiting.

“SHIELD!”

The shock of the answer is enough to have him letting up the pressure. She drags in a long breath, lips curling in a smile.

“You’re a lot smarter than I expected. But still just as pretty. You always did have the cutest nose.” She reaches up to tap it and he pushes her back into the wall.

She only grins like this is some game they’re playing.

“Where is Simmons?” he asks again.

“Technically,” she says, straightening her lab coat, “Jemma Simmons is right here in front of you. But if you mean _your_ Jemma Simmons,” she adds quickly, when he lifts a hand, “she’s most likely where I was up until two months ago.”

He’s starting to get that headache he used to whenever FitzSimmons were theorizing about what was causing this Gifted’s powers or that inexplicable event. He hates the science side of this stuff, he’d rather just shoot the problem and be done with it.

But if he does that now, he might not ever find the real Simmons. So he asks, “And where was that?”

“A SHIELD prison. The uprising went a little differently where I’m from. SHIELD persevered. HYDRA fell.”

He lets that sink in for a minute. Then gives it one more just to be sure he’s hearing her right. “You’re saying that you’re from …?”

“Another version of reality. Yes. Apparently something went wrong in the lab here while my other self was studying an 0-8-4. I’m told there was an explosion, but I wouldn’t know. I went to bed, same as I had for the last four months in my tiny prison cell, and woke up on the floor downstairs.” She shrugs carelessly.

“Why were you in prison?” he asks. “If SHIELD won…”

She gives him a disappointed look. “Maybe you’re not that much smarter than he was,” she mutters.

She’s HYDRA. He has more trouble wrapping his mind around that than the other world thing. Simmons being HYDRA—really, truly, uncoerced HYDRA. It just doesn’t compute.

She moves forward, her hands slipping under his shirt to slide up his chest. After months stuck in that cell of Coulson’s, the contact has his breath shivering out of him.

“But you are smart enough to know which side you belong on,” she says. “Which is more than I could say for him.” Her nails drag over the skin she’s left extra sensitive. “You’re all the pretty with none of that pesky moralizing.”

He sways into her, catching himself on her hips. “Forget about her.” Her hips sway into his. “I’m sure I’ll be more fun than the little traitor.”

“Traitor?” First HYDRA, now traitor. Not exactly how he’d describe Simmons.

“Oh, yes.” She moves closer to his ear to whisper, “You wouldn’t believe who showed up at her apartment, asking about HYDRA’s inner workings. Trust me, that bitch is getting exactly what she deserves."

No way. No fucking way Coulson sent Simmons undercover.

But it makes sense. Why else would her double be able to slip so seamlessly into her place? If there’d been any coercion, HYDRA would wonder why it suddenly stopped having any effect.

“Now that we’ve got that cleared up-” she uses the belt-loops on his jeans to pull him closer- “why don’t we get acquainted, Agent Ward?”

He digs his fingers into her hair again, twisting just enough so that she’s caught in that place between pain and pleasure. Her eyes flutter and her hips writhe against his. “Sounds like a plan.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jemma hugs her knees to her chest and rests her forehead on top of them. In the small, dark space, it’s easier to forget. This is the only respite she has anymore. Her nightmares are no longer falling endlessly from airplanes or swimming for a surface she never reaches, they’re filled with her friends, her friends hating her and hurting her and refusing to listen to anything she says.

Which is too much like reality. So she’ll take her tiny bit of darkness, her heartbeat in her ears drowning out the yells and screams from the cells near hers, and whatever peace she can manage until she’s dragged out again.

It’s difficult today. Probably because she’s hurting all over from her time in the chair. The aching pulse in her muscles makes it harder to forget what her life has become. And they must be especially busy today too, usually it’s only one scream at a time, maybe two if the last victim is still suffering when they throw him back and the next is more fearful than usual. But there are so many screams now that she can’t even hear her own heavy breathing.

The door of her cell whines on its hinges whenever it opens. As always, the sound makes her tense instinctively. After so recently being returned though, it hurts and she whimpers in pain before she catches herself.

Her jailers don’t appreciate it when she cries out, not unless they were the ones to cause it.

She leans into the corner, expecting a beating, but instead hands grip her arms, tugging them away from her legs.

“No,” she says. “No, not again.”

They’ve never taken her more than once a day. She can’t do it again. Not so soon.

A roughly calloused hand slips gently into her hair, moving it away from the cut on her temple.

“Not what again?”

“Ward?” she gasps. She hasn’t seen him. Everyone else from the team, even people it should have been impossible to see again—Victoria Hand tried to offer her a deal for information she doesn’t have, and Dr. Hall is in one of the cells down the hall—but never Ward.

She wonders dimly if he’s finally come to end it and finds she isn’t as heartsick as she should be.

“In the flesh. Miss me?”

His charming smile drifts in and out of focus. She catches his wrist to keep upright, feels the scar from his first suicide attempt.

“Yeah, you missed me,” he says.

Then her world goes sideways. She hears a woman’s scream. Everything goes black for a moment before she sees lights flickering by overhead. She’s being carried. They’re running.

She drifts. Her head lolls against a steady shoulder and a man’s voice orders her to stay with him, but the pain is everywhere and blissful nothing is rising up to meet her. She jumps into it.

 

She comes awake in a soft bed, with machines softly reporting her continued state of living. She’s somewhat surprised.

“Welcome back, Ms. Simmons.” Bakshi. She’s so weak she can’t even jump at the sight of him, but her heartbeat ticks up. “My apologies,” he says with a narrow glance at the monitor, “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I understand you’ve been through a terrible ordeal, but don’t worry. You’re safe now and you’ll be happy to know the situation is well in-hand. I’ll be by to check on your progress again later.” He nods politely to someone out of her line of sight, presumably her doctor, and makes his exit.

She has some trouble believing him when the HYDRA symbol smiles down at her as the door slips shut behind him, but the pain that’s become her constant companion is distant, separated from her by a thick cloud of what she presumes to be painkillers. And Sunil Bakshi was not one of the people who caused her pain in the last few weeks. She lets herself hope.

Ward steps into her line of sight. It was him who drew Bakshi’s attention. But like Bakshi, he never hurt her, and she isn’t about to waste the energy it would take to recoil from him, not when it would mean shaking off the soft haze of the drugs.

He smiles down at her, moves her hair away from what feels like a very bad knot on her forehead, and the spark of pain reminds her…

“You rescued me,” she says.

His smile widens. “Yeah.”

With the pain comes new clarity. Where she was before, that was SHIELD. Just because she isn’t in that prison, doesn’t mean she isn’t still in that place.

“You’re home,” Ward says, fingers lacing with hers as the monitor beeps rapidly. “Simmons, you’re _home_. The real world. You’re safe.”

She sighs in relief. It shouldn’t be one, not while she’s vulnerable inside HYDRA with Ward watching over her, but it is. Anything is better than that place.

“What happened?” She has theories, but with so little information given her in her time there, she can’t be certain of much.

Ward explains that the 0-8-4 she was studying switched her with her double and that when he arrived after escaping SHIELD, he realized the imposter couldn’t be the real her.

She wants to ask how he escaped, if he hurt the team, but thoughts of her friends bring to mind the people in that other place, the ones who hurt her. “How did you find me?” she asks instead.

“When I told Bakshi he had a spy from another world working for him, he was happy to pull the 0-8-4 out of storage and put a few lab rats on figuring it out.” His fingers brush at her bangs and over her scalp. The pressure feels good. “After they managed to control the openings, all I had to do was go looking.”

Between his touch and the drugs, it’s growing difficult to stay awake. “You make it sound easy,” she sighs.

“I had some pretty good motivation.” His hand tightens around hers and he keeps up drawing his fingers through her hair. Her eyes slip shut. “Go to sleep, Simmons. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

He made the same promise when he let her nap while waiting for pick-up in the Morocco base. So much has changed since then, but she finds herself wanting to believe him.

She drifts back down into the dark. This time she dreams of strong hands and a warm embrace. She doesn’t dream of her friends at all.

 


End file.
